From the left: The Endless Language War
“We’re in an era in which every news controversy devolves into sub-controversies about language, often accompanied by rushes of instructions on improved terminology,” grumbles Racket News’ Matt Taibbi.
Like “referring to ‘undocumented’ instead of ‘illegal’ immigrants.”
But now even those are too offensive: “today’s sensitivity to victimized status may become tomorrow’s callous indifference to social conditions.”
Yet “with words, people always choose character over correctitude, which is how you know Latinx will end up a slur for something, if academics succeed in forcing it on the population.”
And the “Year Zero fascination with rewriting history is all of a piece. Change is fine, but when we start changing the changed changes, those are signs on the road to Crazyville. And we’re flooring it.”
Libertarian: Liberals’ Flag Lies
“The idea that either the Pine Tree flag or flying the American flag upside-down” are “endorsements of Trump’s election-related malfeasance is ludicrous,” yet “Democratic politicians and media figures” cite the flags as reason Justice Samuel Alito “should sit out from January 6 cases,” fumes Reason’s Robby Soave.
“The American flag is commonly turned upside-down by activists representing all sorts of issues,” while “the ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag has equally broad usage” — “The Black Lives Matter movement was using it just a few weeks before January 6,” and San Francisco’s City Hall flew it “for decades,” removing it only “in response to the Alito controversy.”
“That picture of a pine tree is not a right-wing symbol of hate; cowards are turning it into one.”
Eye on Albany: Rushing To Protect ‘Cadillac’ Benefits
The latest drive “to block any change to retiree health coverage for state and local public employees” would be the broadest and most costly yet — and more than two-thirds of state lawmakers are supporting it,” warns the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin.
Nearly all public employees in New York can keep “their (typically gold- or platinum-level) health insurance plans” on retirement, “with little or no required personal contribution” — a perk that’s “vanished from employee compensation packages in most of the private sector.”
NY “public employers have promised over $300 billion in retiree healthcare benefits and have set aside little to pay for it.”
The legislation would prevent efforts to reduce those outlays, such as by moving retirees to Medicare Advantage. Gov. “Hochul must prepare to use her veto pen to protect taxpayers.”
Budget experts: Joe’s Tax Hike Would Hit Workers
President Biden’s White House “complains that ‘corporations received an enormous tax break in 2017,’ ” and vowed to raise it in the interest of fairness, note Kevin Brady & Douglas Holtz-Eakin at The Wall Street Journal.
“Yet the Trump tax cuts were a boon” for workers, spurring “businesses investment” and restoring US companies’ global competitiveness.
“For workers, the 9% increase in inflation-adjusted earnings between Jan. 1, 2018, and Dec. 31, 2020, was the fastest growth since the government began publishing data in 1979,” yet “corporate-tax revenue today is higher than it was projected to be at the 35% rate.”
A hike “would be financed” by shareholders, workers and customers. “This is a pivotal moment for preserving the opportunities” for US workers.
Liberal: Inflation the Top Voting Issue
Inflation looks to be the issue likely to “animate the most politically disinterested Americans,” reports The Liberal Patriot’s John Halpin, as polling shows 47% citw “inflation as their number one most pressing issue.”
That “makes sense when we examine the state of personal finances for these politically disinterested Americans,” as “six in ten voters who pay attention to public affairs only now and then or hardly at all say their personal finances are either poor or very poor these days, compared to less than half of the people who pay attention to politics either some or most of the time.”
To win these voters over, the “best path forward is to offer a viable and believable plan for addressing their deep concerns about the high cost-of-living.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board